“Estimates of how many creatures are killed by cats each year vary significantly”. This statement appears on the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) website, immediately below the question: “Are cats causing bird declines?” To those acquainted with the charity’s legendary willingness to put its own interests ahead of the welfare of birds, this statement is an early hint that cats are going to be let off the hook; a suspicion which hardens when the estimate that it then quotes errs significantly on the low side and is, as far as we can see, based on figures at least 10 years old.
Quoting a report by the Mammal Society, the RSPB states that cats may kill as many as 55 million birds each year; however, as the RSPB acknowledges that total does not include birds which are not brought home or having been injured then escape and die later. Neither the Mammal Society nor the RSPB makes any attempt to quantify this latter number, but there is no reason to suppose that it is not a large figure. And there is good reason to believe too, that the Mammal Society’s figure of 55 million is some way adrift of reality, either that or British cats are slacking when compared to their cousins elsewhere. For example, a report published in 2013 by the group, Nature Communications, suggested that the USA’s 86 million cats could be killing up to 3.7 billion birds annually. That works out at 43 each. Apply that average to the UK’ s estimated 8 million cats and the numbers of bird mortalities rise to more than 370 million. Whether or not fatalities are measured in the tens or hundreds of millions, the apparent dedication with which the RSPB seeks to exonerate the domestic cat is more redolent of an organisation focused on providing PR for felines than the protection of our feathered comrades.
Here is the RSPB again: “Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific evidence that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK-wide. This may be surprising, but many millions of birds die naturally every year, mainly through starvation, disease, or other forms of predation. There is evidence that cats tend to take weak or sickly birds”.
This is pure sophistry, not the least because the reason there is no scientific evidence is because, as far as we establish, no scientific study has ever been carried out with the specific purpose of answering this question. And on the subject of evidence, whilst it is reasonable to say that cats will take weak and sickly prey more often than the healthy, once again there is no scientific (or indeed anecdotal) evidence to back the statement up. Unabashed by the lack of anything resembling hard fact the RSPB concludes: “It is likely that most of the birds killed by cats would have died anyway from other causes before the next breeding season, so cats are unlikely to have a major impact on populations”. That last bit reveals the highly selective nature of the RSPB’s use of the Mammal Society’s research. Having summoned the Society to its cause, it then chooses to ignore its conclusion (as detailed in reports published in 1997 and 2005) that: “the combined impact of predation by millions of cats may have a substantial effect on wildlife.
A number of respected studies have concluded that all wildlife populations predated by cats have coevolved over a long period of time and that therefore the numbers of birds and mammals taken by them have similarly evolved to be sustainable. This is logical, but whilst it might appear to support the RSPB’s position, what it actually does is highlight how habitat decline and the exponential growth in the importance of domestic gardens (something which the RSPB uses as a major recruiting tool) has brought concentrated bird populations into the orbit of cats. A change picked up upon by no less a figure than doyenne of naturalists, Sir David Attenborough, who on the Christmas Day edition of the BBC’s Tweet of the Day warned that cats were killing huge numbers of garden birds.
Those in the country pursuits sector are only too well aware of the RSPB’s highly proscriptive approach to their activities. Forever urging new regulation and demanding penalties against any whose actions (to its mind) offers a threat, perceived or otherwise, to birds, the RSPB is more or less silent on the issue of cats. At which point it is as well to remind ourselves of those numbers. Somewhere between 55 and 300 million birds every year, never mind an even greater numbers of small mammals. Whilst this happens the RSPB is unable to summon even a fraction of the outrage that accompanies its relentless pursuit of game shooters. By contrast intensely aware that among potential membership recruits there are likely to be a large number of cat lovers, the best it can come up with is to suggest that owners might voluntarily ensure that their pets have a collar and bell. No suggestion then of following the model provided by the state of Western Australia. There all cat breeders are licenced, every cat over 6 months has to be sterilised, microchipped, vaccinated and registered and local authorities can limit the number of cats in a household. Whether or not such policies could be made to work in this country, by at least arguing for a robust body of controls on domestic cats the RSPB would show that in defending the central pillar on which it stands – namely the protection and conservation of wild birds, it is prepared to risk alienating a tranche of its membership. However, with a large pension deficit to manage, a multi-million pound marketing budget and some hefty executive salaries to fund, in the fight against 8 million domestic cats, the birds are going to be on their own.